Grand Game 316: The View from Above (Patreon)

DAY THREE IN THE DUNGEON

You have slept 6 hours. Stamina, mana, and psi reserves have been fully restored.

Your Dexterity has increased to rank 58. Other modifiers: +24 from items.

You have etched an aetherstone with the aether coordinates of nether portal 1 in Kingdom sector 18,240. Currently stored aether locations: 3. Charged and unetched gems: 2.

I awoke early the next morning, the dawn of my third day in Draven’s Reach. Before lying down to rest, I had spent my available attribute points and tutored Ghost further in spellcraft and the ways of the Game. I’d also charged the aetherstone bracelet.

Unfortunately, the aetherstones were of no use in the dungeon. But as soon as I escaped its confines, I intended to use the bracelet to rejoin the wolves and the others. By now, they were all surely wondering what had happened to me.

I glanced up at the encircling walls of the cauldron. Ghost and I were at the ravine once more, ready to begin our day’s adventures. It was time to move on from the starting area—although I don’t suppose it could be called that.

I had entered Draven’s Reach through a hidden portal and could be anywhere in the dungeon, including near its exit. “That’s the next step, I guess,” I murmured.

Ghost glanced at me. “What is?”

“Figuring out how this dungeon is laid out,” I replied. From the welcome message, I knew Draven’s Reach had only one sector and one boss. The dungeon boss mattered little to me, though, except that he was likely near the exit portal, and finding that was all important.

“How will we do that?” Ghost asked.

I pointed to the cliffs. “By scaling those.”

✵ ✵ ✵

You have equipped a set of cat claws.

The cauldron’s walls were smooth, near-vertical, and almost devoid of cracks and other handy outcroppings, but with my cat claws and Ghost’s help, scaling their heights was almost too easy.

Devoid of a body, the spirit wolf did not need to climb.

She simply floated upward to a likely perch, and I teleported to her. Using my cat claws, I clung to the cliff and waited for her to reposition. Then we repeated the maneuver.

A few short hops later, I was atop the cauldron walls. Packing away my climbing gear, I took in the view.

I stood on a mountain plateau, one that seemingly stretched for miles and encompassed the entirety of the dungeon. The plateau was riddled with seams—jagged canyons, chasms, and rock valleys—and although I couldn’t see into their depths, I realized they were not unlike the cauldron I had just exited and likely housed the other dungeon denizens.

I turned about in a slow circle. The plateau itself was cold, barren, and uninhabited. Or so it appeared at first glance. To the south and west—less than a hundred yards from the cauldron’s edge—the plateau terminated abruptly as the violet sky curved downwards to enfold it.

I was right about that, I thought, following the arch of the sky. The violet horizon I had spotted from below was part of the sector’s protective barrier. The dome enclosed the entire plateau and was so large that its northern and eastern ends were shrouded from sight. But distance was not the only thing obscuring the view.

To the northeast, in what I judged to be the dungeon’s center, hung a monstrous bank of pale fog.

It was so large that it extended from the top of the violet dome and disappeared beneath the plateau, eclipsing an area of over a square mile. There were other fog banks as well, but they were much smaller, with the next largest covering an area of only a few dozen yards. The gray haze I had spotted earlier streamed between the central fog bank and the smaller ones, as if… it was feeding them.

Whatever the fog banks and gray haze were, I didn’t have a good feeling about them.

“What could they be?” I mused, wondering if I should draw closer to inspect one. The nearest fog bank was a long way off though, and I would have to traverse a good distance to reach it.

“What could what be?” Ghost asked.

“The fog,” I replied, thinking it self-evident.

“Fog?” Ghost swung around to study the sweeping vista. “Oh, you mean the plumes of smoke in the north.”

I frowned. “It isn’t just in the north, and I wouldn’t call it smoke. It’s more—”

My eyes narrowed. There was a column of smoke to the north. It was mostly obscured by the intervening fog banks, which was why I hadn’t noticed it earlier.

“Well spotted, Ghost,” I murmured, crouching down to take a closer look at the spiraling column. It appeared to originate from one of the dungeon’s northern gorges.

The gorge was large enough that I could see into its depths despite the many miles separating us. At its center, there was a cluster of bright dots, although they appeared blurry at this distance. Squinting, I strained my eyes, and one of the dots swam into focus.

My eyes widened. “Those are campfires!”

Ghost looked at me uncomprehendingly. “Is that significant?”

I nodded. “Fires equals civilization. And civilization means people.”

Ghost paused to consider this. “Allies?”

“They may become that,” I allowed, “but it’s equally possible they will prove hostile.”

I contemplated my next move. Draven’s Reach was obviously a large dungeon. The winding chasms and canyons made for a veritable maze and had to span many dozen miles. Worse yet, there was no obvious indication as to the location of the exit portal. I could spend weeks, if not months, searching fruitlessly for it.

Or I can ask someone.

My gaze drifted back to the gorge. Someone there was bound to know something. “The gorge bears investigation,” I pronounced at last. “Let’s go.”

✵ ✵ ✵

I was tempted to use the plateau as a highway and cut straight across to the gorge, but I was also curious about the dungeon and the other denizens that populated its depths.

So, rather than taking the direct path, I decided to follow the chasms and canyons that threaded through the plateau. That way, I could learn something of Draven’s Reach’s inhabitants, while also staying safely out of their reach.

Walking along the cliff tops encircling the cauldron, I made my way to the canyon leading away from it and peered down. The canyon was narrow, only about a dozen yards wide, and expanded eastwards as it zigzagged through the mountain. From what I could see, it was devoid of life. Unfazed by the drop, I strolled along the edge of the cliff, following the canyon.

Ten minutes later, I spotted something of interest.

Dropping into a crouch, I stared into the canyon. It had slowly begun to curve northwards, and so far, I hadn’t come across any branches or, for that matter, hostiles.

Until now.

Less than a hundred yards further was a slumped shape. The thing was unmoving and, from this distance appeared formless, but given the vivid blue hue of its covering, it was certainly no rock.

“Do you see it?” I whispered.

“The blue body?” Ghost replied.

I nodded. “It’s either sleeping, knocked unconscious, or… dead.” My brows furrowed. “Can you sense its mind?”

“It doesn’t have any,” Ghost asserted. “It’s dead.” She paused. “Unless it’s another construct...?”

“Unlikely. This one isn’t moving.” I reached out with my will. In this, an elite dungeon, I was more wary than was my wont to use analyze, but given that Ghost’s observations tallied with my own, I deemed it safe enough to inspect the seemingly-lifeless hump.

The target is a level 214 dead frost ent.

I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. A dead elite. What had killed it, though?

Running my gaze across the surroundings, I searched for an answer but spotted nothing that could be responsible for the creature’s demise. I hesitated, pondering my next move.

Draven’s Reach was beginning to perturb me.

I’d not forgotten that the Adjudicator had labeled the dungeon ‘corrupt.’ Then, too, there were the unusual fog banks and the fact that Limp and One-arm had been injured before I encountered them. Finally, there was the dead ent that I had most certainly not killed.

If I didn’t know better, I would have said there were other players about, but the dungeon welcome message had been clear: I was the only player in Draven’s Reach.

Of course, another party could have slipped in sometime during the three days since I’ve been here, but I thought it highly improbable that neither Ghost nor I would have sensed their presence if they’d come close enough to injure the stone golems. Whatever the case, the mystery was growing, and I was no longer sure I could ignore it.

“We go down,” I said finally.

✵ ✵ ✵

Reaching the bottom of the canyon took only a little longer than scaling the cliff had. Touching down lightly, I tiptoed towards the body with Ghost by my side.

Now that I was at eye level with the corpse, its true size became apparent. The frost ent was nearly as large as the stone golems and covered in pale blue skin. But while the golems had been fleshless, the ent was a creature of blood and bone.

Drawing to a halt at the foot of the creature, I walked a slow circle around it. The corpse lay face down, so I could tell nothing of its features, but the ent had two arms and two legs and was clearly humanoid. It was naked, too, except for the tattered loincloth wrapped around its waist and the primitive club clenched in its right hand.

What drew my interest though, was the corpse’s wounds.

Cuts and slashes marred nearly every square foot of ent’s body. An entire chunk of flesh had been bitten off its arm, and deep furrows scored its back. In places, the creature’s skin had been seared off completely, burned or dissolved.

The ent had clearly been assaulted. If I had to guess, I’d say there had been multiple attackers involved, and they’d used both tooth and claw. But who were they? This did not seem like the work of players.

It can only be other dungeon denizens.

Why was there no sign of them, though?

The rocky ground was too hard to capture footprints, but that did not explain the absence of other physical evidence. Except for the ent’s own remains, there were no blood spatters, tufts of fur, or score marks in the rocks—nothing that I could ascribe to the ent’s attackers. Surely an elite of the ent’s stature had not gone down without landing a few blows of its own?

This makes no sense, I thought, bowing my head in silent contemplation.

“There’s more over here,” Ghost said, sounding disconcerted.

I looked up to find the spirit wolf had wandered further down the canyon and was studying something beyond my line of sight. “Another corpse?” I asked sharply.

There was a long pause before she answered. “Yes.”

Abandoning the dead ent, I hurried towards Ghost, but drew up short before I reached her.

Beyond the next bend in the canyon were three more corpses.

More dead frost ents. They, too, had been killed savagely, and once more, the attackers seemed to have left no evidence of their passing.

Damn. What is going on in this dungeon?